Let me start by telling you that I am STOA’s TAC Inspector number 1 and Lead Inspector Trainer. I don’t actively participate in the CAT Forum, nor do any of STOA’s Senior Inspectors other than Buck Trippel, that I know of. The STOA Tiger Authentication Committee has been active since 1994 and has Authenticated over 900 Tigers so far. The TAC Inspectors are 100% volunteers and are not paid for their services. They act simply as Tiger Owners for the good of the Marque. We have been paying minor expenses for inspectors for the last couple of years to facilitate the TAC operation and minimize Inspector expences. This was the major reasons we began to collect a $50 fee.

All told there are thirteen active STOA Senior Inspectors, so far, to cover the world. We are currently training a Senior Inspector in the UK. Ten of these Senior Inspectors have the necessary documents and are ready to offer local inspection for Authentication. Most, but not all of them, have the ability to train new TAC inspectors. The number of Senior Inspectors is limited by several factors and one of the most important is absolute integrity and trust. They are all long time owners and respected members of STOA and the other clubs they belong and contribute to. Were they not owners with this level of respect, the whole TAC Program would have no value.

We have collectively trained and accepted 68 Inspectors since we began the Program. A substantial portion of these Inspectors and most of the Seniors, paid their own way to my home, to receive this training. I have also traveled across the US several times, Australia, twice, and the UK, at my own expense, to Authenticate Tigers and train Inspectors and Senior Inspectors. At the current time, of the 68 Inspectors that have been trained, we have about 48 that are currently active.

The following is a list of the active Senior Inspectors that are ready to Authenticate Tigers, their Locations and contact information:

You may contact any of them to discuss the program in general or what events in their geographic area they normally have a TAC operation planned for. You can also pretty much count on TAC operations being available at any major Sunbeam meet. The Seniors also schedule several invitational TAC operations a year in their vicinities.

One would think that an organization, geographically located in the greater Silicon Valley, would have many active members that had the relevant talents to build and maintain a reasonable internet web site. The truth is that very few Tiger owners with this talent are active in our area. So building STOA’s web site has turned into a difficult, multi-year ordeal. We are hoping that our new developing site (www.sunbeamtiger.org) will have the complete listing of Authenticated Tigers by mid summer.

You can contact me or Pat King (TAC Chairman) with any questions you have about the TAC program. We will do our best to respond to you in a timely fashion.